A month passed quickly. Out of the blue, John
showed up at my door. He said he wanted to
withdraw the divorce papers.
8
I stood there, stunned. I had asked for the
divorce, but he’d probably been thinking about
it too Why also would he have been so critical
<
it too. Why else would he have been so critical,
so nitpicky lately? Besides, Melissa’s baby
bump was getting bigger by the day; I imagined
she was putting on the pressure. His sudden
change of heart caught me completely off
guard.
“Why?” I asked.
John avoided my gaze. After a long pause, he
mumbled, “…I miss our family.”
My mind drifted. When John first started his
business, he traveled a lot. Every time he left,
he would hug me and kiss David’s little face.
“Honey, I’ll miss you guys. I’ll be home as soon
as I can.”
When had he started being reluctant to come
home?
Perhaps sensing my hesitation, he reached out
and took my hand. “Honey, let’s stop this,
okay? Do you really want David to grow up
without a father?”
I pulled my hand away, a trace of sarcasm in
my eyes. “John, you’re the one who messed up.
You’re the one who doesn’t want to face the
consequences. How does that work?”
9
Something felt off. I asked a friend to look into
John’s situation. What she found shocked me.
John ran a trading company, basically buying
and selling goods through his network of
contacts. Two weeks ago, a shipment of goods.
that Melissa had been in charge of procuring
turned out to be counterfeit. The supplier
disappeared, and the clients refused to accept
the goods, demanding compensation for their
losses. Apparently, John had to empty his
accounts just to cover the damages. Forget a
hundred thousand
–
he probably couldn’t even
scrape together a thousand dollars right now.
This sudden desire to reconcile wasn’t just
about dodging the payment; he was probably
after the house. We lived in a desirable school
district; the house was worth at least half a
million.
When we initially agreed on the divorce terms, I
didn’t know what David had said to him. Maybe
John still felt a tiny shred of guilt. Or maybe,
back when his business was booming, he hadn’t
cared about the money. He signed the divorce
agreement readily. But now that he was broke,
our assets looked like a lifeline.
He wanted to keep everything for himself. His
mistress caused the problem, and he wanted to
take advantage of his ex–wife? Not a chance.
10
The waiting period ended. We were supposed
to finalize the divorce, but I couldn’t reach John.
He was probably stalling, hoping the process
would fall apart.
Just when I was at my wit’s end, I received a
package. It contained a USB drive with
evidence of John’s affair: videos of him and
Melissa going into hotels, screenshots of their
explicit conversations, even Venmo transactions with captions like “Love you!” and “Forever!“.
I took a picture of the evidence and sent it to
John. “If we can’t settle this amicably, I’ll take
you to court.”
